


hotel california (in the land of nod)

by 8sword



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cain!Dean, Episode: s09e13 The Purge, Episode: s09e15 Thinman, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Mark of Cain, Post-Episode: s09e13 The Purge, Season 9, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 11:26:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1467757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The owner comes sometimes. He's tall, he's thin, he unfolds himself from the black car like a piece of origami. The creases are crisp and clean; the creases are worn and well-thumbed. Dean knows them; Dean made them; Dean doesn't know how to put them back together anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hotel california (in the land of nod)

**Author's Note:**

> I rewatched "The Purge." I am apparently still not done having feels over that episode. And I apparently had more feels about "The Grand Hotel Budapest" than I realized.
> 
> Generalized spoilers for S9 through 9.18, with lines taken from numerous episodes as well as from "Hotel California" by the Eagles and "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads. Unforgivable formatting.

The hallway is lined with doors. He's staring at the brass-plated numbers above their peepholes when something chimes behind him.

He turns to look. It's the elevator. It's closing. There's a face just behind the doors, and he catches little more than a glimpse of pale pink skin before it's swallowed by the crack.

Goosebumps crawl up his neck. Sweat slicks his hands. He looks down. They are wrapped around a handle. They are wrapped around a cart.

There are stacks of fluffy white towels on the cart. Tiny bars of soap. Wrapped rolls of toilet paper.

He rolls forward. Squeak, squeak, squeak. The carpet is plush. The wheels are old. They sink into it and don't want to move forward.

_(when are you gonna realize it's over? there's nothing left to fight for!)_

 

He thinks he was a guest here, once. But something happened. Now:

Sometimes he's the bell hop and sometimes he's the valet and sometimes he's a man in the Turkish baths, staring up at the blue-tiled ceiling through the wavering water.

 

He stops in front of the room. He knows this room. The tarnished _22_ on the door.

He knocks. He waits. He pulls the key from his belt and unlocks the door. It swings open with a sound like something heavy, something metal.

_(this is not my beautiful house)_

_(this is not my beautiful wife)_

The room is empty.

It always is.

 

_"You were five and you got dressed up as Batman and_

_you jumped off the shed 'cause you thought you could fly."_

                                                                                                                                                                           

But there's remnants of the guest in the room. A silver ring left next to the bathroom sink. A crumpled-up burger wrapper on the table. An amulet in the small trash can beside the door.

A white towel over the curtain rod in the bathroom. Dripping onto the tile. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Things smeared across the fogged plastic of the curtain. He touches them from the outside, just his fingertips. He pulls the curtain back.

Something in the tub. Tan and red and liquid. Skin.

Suddenly he's back at the end of the hallway again. Turning around, and when the elevator doors part, he's at the hotel entrance. Wearing a black polo and stepping forward to take the keys from a man getting out of a white Cadillac.

He slides behind the wheel.

He's not sure what happens after that.

 

Time is liquid here. Boneless like that thing in the bathtub. Invisible like the man in room 22.

 

There's a woman in the dining room. She eats powdered donuts by the window every day, when it's gotten dark enough that the candles have been lit on the linen-clothed tables. Their burning reflections sit in the dark windows, wavering like the water in the baths. Dean watches them from his place behind the silver serving dishes. There is nothing on his arm.

(His hands are clean. He washed them to be able to serve. He washed them so he wouldn't get anyone else dirty.)

_(i won't drag anybody through the muck with me. not anymore)_

 

The owner comes sometimes. In a dark car, a silver horse against the black. He's tall, he's thin, he unfolds himself like a piece of origami. The creases are crisp and clean; the creases are worn and well-thumbed. Dean knows them; Dean made them; Dean doesn't know how to put them back together anymore.

He waits at the desk each time. Collar starched around his throat. Cuffs snug around his wrists. He vibrates, ready to greet. To welcome.

_(good evening, sir)_

_(heya, sammy)_

Something always gets in the way. A luggage cart stacked high rolled between them. A large woman stepping up to the counter to demand a new room. A--

And then he's in the hallway, again.

 

The Turkish baths are filled with ice. He lowers himself into it, muscles locked tense against the cold. His jaw is a cage; it keeps his gasps trapped inside.

_(you think...maybe i knew? i mean, deep down, that--)_

A swimming cap hugs his skull. He sinks lower into the cold. He thinks of a thing in a chair, straps around a familiar forehead, a familiar chin. The screaming.

 

_"After you jumped first."_

 

(It's all mixed up in his head. like water and blood and mud mixing in a shower drain. he feels like a--)

 

Room 22 again. His knees dig into the porcelain edge of the tub. He stares at the puddle of skin in the drain.

There are goosebumps on his neck and he knows that if he turns around there will be a figure in the doorway behind him, disfigured face and black vicar's robe.

 

 _Dinner Shows Nightly_ , advertise the signs in the lobby. He serves at them, he is served at them; he keeps his back to the stage. There is a man who sits alone. Dean scoops corn onto his plate; Dean feels buzzing in his ears.

He tries to ignore it. Tries to ignore the feeling of something crawling out of the holes. Out of his nose. Out of his eye sockets. Heat escapes anyway, hot things dripping from his eyes and his nose, dribbling onto the man's food.

he looks up at Dean and says,

_(you're welcome to join me for the last meal)_

 

Black headphones lay on the wrinkled bedspread. The sound from them is tinny, still playing from the small speakers like the man who lives in room 22 was listening to them just before Dean knocked and came inside.

He knows the words. He knows he knows them.

_they stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the_

 

"Everybody--"

 

A flame-haired woman comes for the show. She finds him in the coatroom, shrugs the animal from her shoulders. Leans close, and cups his jaw, and breathes across his face.

_you and me, lover_

It is dark in the coatroom. It is dark in his eyes. Only her cigarette glows, the butt of it: orange and trailing smoke.

She traps it between her teeth so she can unbutton the cuff of his sleeve.

 

"--knows--"

 

Afterward he goes down the stairs.

Down them.

 

"--that--"

 

The sign says, Authorized Personnel Only

_(he was right, you know. you are worthy)_

Keep Door Locked.

_(the mark can be transferred to someone who's worthy)_

**D A N G E R**

 

"--Batman--"

 

(Here, in the basement, there's only one door.)

(This is where it began.)

(This is where it ends.)

 

"--can't--"

 

He's in the boiler--

He's going to the boiler--

He's been to the boiler--

(Jimmy Novak sticking his hand into the pot)

(Cain ripping leaves from ears of corn)

( _i wish i could be there, dean)_

_(i wish i could smell the flesh sizzle off your bones)_

_(I WISH I COULD BE THERE TO HEAR YOU SCREAM)_

 

 

"--fly."

 

 

 

 


End file.
